Tomb Raider - Vacation to Florida
by KyleKirkpatrick123
Summary: Lara Croft, Winston Smith, and Zip are leaving London for sunny-side Florida to take a vacation in Lara's vacation house. However, Lara and the gang will soon learn the dangers of leaving your vacation house vacant for too long... (The house in this story is based off of the house used in the TR2 TRLE Game "Home Attack (TR2)" by "Fabio.") [Story was originally written in May 2018]


It was May 2018, and Lara was taking a trip away from London, and to the states, to sunny-side Florida where she had a paid-off vacation residence there. While much smaller than her Abbington manor, she always loved the odd style of the house. And, best part, it was only around 5 minutes away from the beach, what could be better? Lara, Winston, and Zip decided to head there for a nice summer getaway, away from the tomb raiding for a while.

"Haven't been there in about 3 years," started Lara, "I hope it's still standing," she said jokingly.

"I'm sure it's just fine, Miss Croft," started Winston, "However, we'll probably have to do some cleaning in and outside the home before we can really start to enjoy our vacation."

"You're probably right Winston," said Lara. It was late May, school had just let out and the kids were running wild in the area. Lara and the gang arrived at the gates of the vacation home and immediately noticed the mildew and moss all over the side of the residence, and there was trash all along the walkway inside. The gates were like those on Lara's main manor, with the big openings, so trash could've very easily of found it's way inside via wind travel. "This place has seen better days." Lara said as she opened the gate, and made their way into the small, but cozy vacation home. It was fairly clean and organized, except for the dust which covered literally everything in the house, including the floor. "Well, at least it hasn't been looted." The house was set up as follows: When you walked in the front door, you were immediately presented with a small, but nicely laid out room with areas for coats and shoes, as well as some paintings hanging on the wall. Make your way forward and you reach a hallway, with a bathroom to your right, and then a pantry to your left. Then as you make your way forward more to the end of the hallway you reach the kitchen (with a convenient door to the right that could also act as a Front door or main entrance door.) Further onward you reach the Living Room, which had a TV and DVD Player, but not much else in terms of entertainment. The couch there though could pull out into a bed, which is where Zip would be sleeping. If you went to the right you would reach an Office area, furnished with some books that Lara didn't have the room to store in her main manor, and an area to put a laptop. Then to the left of the Living Room is where the Master Bedroom is, which is where Lara would be sleeping. Backtrack outside through the Kitchen door, make a left, and go forward a little, you'll enter the dining area, as well as the grill area. The table was filthy from 3 years of abuse, but they would have to clean it later. The whole area was under a huge concrete slab from above, so they could eat out there while it was raining without getting wet, and there were multiple heaters for during the winter time. Go forward a little more and you reach a multi-purpose area. There was a TV there and Yoga Mats set up on the ground, which were moldy and decaying. Lara forgot to put them away when she left the last time. There was also a bathroom to the right of that. Turn left and go forward a little bit more to reach the second bedroom, which is where Winston will sleep. Then, up on that concrete slab mentioned earlier, has the entrance to the attic, where Lara kept some boxes for storage.

Once everybody was settled in and organized, Lara and friends started the process of cleaning the entire house. Lara rented a Power Wash machine and sprayed the mildew and mold off the side of the house, Zip dusted the house, and Winston cleaned some of the outdoor décor and furniture that was dirty from the 3 years being left out there. It took them several hours, however once they were done, Lara decided to grill some burgers and have a good night. In the morning they would begin their wonderful journey of going to the beach, and then touring the area around them. Lara had owned the house for a while and usually would come alone. Winston had only been there one other time, and this was Zip's first time there, so she was glad to have the company. They all went to bed at around 11:30 PM (23:30) at night. Sometime during the night, Winston got up to use the restroom. He had to go outside since his room was separated from the rest of the house, however bright lights illuminated the way. Before going inside the bathroom, he saw, across the long pathway, a person standing outside the gate. They didn't appear to be looking in, so Winston just assumed they were admiring something and went inside the bathroom. A couple minutes later when he came out, the person was still standing there, still starring at whatever he was looking at. He wanted to ask him what he was doing but realized that wouldn't be a good idea this late at night and considered the possibility he was drunk or high and wasn't sure what was going on around him, so he just went back to bed. The next morning, a scream coming from outside woke up Lara and Winston. Lara looked at the clock and saw it read 8:13 AM. She grabbed her Signature Dual Pistols and slowly made her way outside. When she got out there, Zip was running away from something, and ran into Lara.

"Holy shit Lara, holy f***ing shit," said Zip. It was obvious he was hysterical.

"What the hell is going on Zip," said Lara in a concerned tone. Zip moved out of the way to reveal a person, dead, right outside the gate. There was blood everywhere, and there was a message written on a wall adjacent to the gate, in blood, that read, _THIS IS A WARNING TO THE OWNERS, LEAVE NOW!_ "What the hell?" Winston quickly came running out a few moments later and asked what was going on, until he saw the dead guy beyond the gate.

"Dear lord," said Winston, "This is the same man I saw last night, standing out in front of the gate while I went to use the restroom."

"What?" started Lara, "What was he doing outside the house?"

"I don't know, Miss Croft. He was just… standing there. Staring out into the distance. I didn't approach him for fear it might've been too dangerous and went back to bed."

Lara called the cops and they showed up and did their general investigation at the scene before transporting the body to the morgue for an autopsy. Winston told the detective there what he saw the previous night and the cop said,

"You know, if you want my honest opinion, I think it was a suicide." Lara, Winston, and Zip seemed puzzled at that conclusion. The cop continued, "I mean, we won't know for sure until we perform an autopsy, but around these parts, people get drunk and high and do some crazy things. This is not necessarily out of the norm for a big tourist spot like here."

"But what about the sign in blood across the wall over there?" said Lara. The officer took another look at it and said,

"Like I said, people get high or drunk and aren't necessarily in a state where they understand what they are doing. He could've gone berserk before he killed himself." They still look puzzled, "Don't worry, we'll have somebody come out and remove that for you, so you don't have to look at it anymore."

"That wasn't what we were looking puzzled about," said Zip.

"Look, I've been a cop in Florida for over 25 years, believe me when I tell you I've seen these types of things way too often unfortunately. I know, an average town this isn't the norm, but people in Florida who like to party and drink a lot can sometimes lead to… unpredictable results." Zip nodded in acceptance of what the cop had said. "Well, I'll need to process this information and try and ID this person, so I'll be heading out. You three have a nice day."

Lara, Winston, and Zip were still on edge from what they had seen in the morning, however they didn't let that ruin their fun. They went to the beach and had a great time. Then they went to explore the area, went shopping, and ate dinner at a restaurant nearby. It was 10:00 PM (22:00) when they returned and were glad to see that the message in blood had been removed and that the other blood in the area had been cleaned. You couldn't tell a suicide had ever taken place there. Everybody was so tired, they went in and crashed. Lara was probably out 30 seconds after hitting the bed. During the middle of the night, Lara and Zip were awoken by, what sounded like, a Bugle playing. Lara's clock read 2:03 AM (2:03.) Lara and Zip went outside to see a bunch of men and women outside the gate dressed in suits similar to those something the Ku Klux Klan would wear, except they were red and black. There was fire surrounding them, and they were chanting something in a language Lara did not recognize. A few moments later Winston followed and said,

"What the hell is going on?"

"We don't know," said both Lara and Zip in sync. Finally, the members turned to Lara, Winston, and Zip, and one of them said,

"You three did not heave our warning, now you will pay the price!" The members started coming through the gate and Lara whipped out her pistols and said,

"Back away, I will fire!"

"Hahaha! Puny mortal," began one of the members, "Your weapons of defense have no harm against us!" Lara began firing her pistols, and the bullets bounced off the members as if they were made of rubber. The members kept laughing at them. Before Lara could get away though, the member put his hand on her shoulder, and she passed out cold.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HER?" shouted Zip. The member was not impressed.

"Wow, Americans are loud, and annoying!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, and I'm not even Amer-," before Zip could finish his sentence the member put his hand on Zip's shoulder which made him pass out cold. During all the commotion though, nobody had noticed that Winston went back to his room and grabbed his Shotgun. Although, like Lara's pistols, the shotgun shells just bounced right off the members. Soon, Winston joined Lara and Zip. They woke up sometime later, right where they had passed out. The house looked just like it had earlier, except one thing was different. The sky was now red, and fire surrounded the house beyond the gate and on the border wall around the vacation home. Somebody came up to them and said,

"Hi there, welcome to Hell!" Lara and friends looked at him with a worried expression on their face?

"Wait, so Christianity isn't complete bullshit," said Zip jokingly,

"Oh no, it's definitely not! We and God talk almost daily to discuss certain political issues. I hate the way he runs heaven, and he hates the way I run hell, but, eh, we all have different viewpoints, am I right?" Lara and friends did not find the humor in the joke. "Oh, excuse me, where are my manners. I am Satan." Lara and Zip just started laughing like crazy! "SILENCE!" Lara and Zip immediately became quiet. "Now then, your little house up on Earth was used as some of our land down here in hell, and you disrupted it!" Lara seemed confused, and said,

"Wait a moment, but my vacation house was still up on Earth, so how could you "use" it as some of your land?"

"Ah, appears you don't know your away around Black Magic. Nevertheless, what we do is we find a piece of land that has been vacant for some time, then we are able to absorb this land and transfer it back down in hell and use it as our own, which is what you are standing on now. Our version of the land back up on Earth."

"Okay, but if that's the case, then why did you come to the house and drag us down here? We weren't affecting your land down here!" said Winston.

"Actually, you were. You see, the reason we are able to extract and absorb land like this was because it was abandoned. There had been no human presence on it for some time. Human presence interferes and starts causing the land to disappear from Hell. The only way to stop it is to remove the "threat" on the Earth property. Which, in this case, was you three. We tried sending you a warning, but that didn't work, so we had no other choice but to transport you guys down here and explain the situation to you."

"Why didn't you just transport us back to our home in London?" questioned Zip.

"Dude, do you even read the Bible at all? We are a "form" of a god, and we don't have those types of powers or abilities. The only ability we do have is to transport you to our home world, in this case being Hell. And, also, I didn't even know you guys were from London. That's God's job to know everything about you, not ours. All our job is, is to torture those who have sinned during their human life and have since died."

"Is that seriously it?" asked Lara.

"I mean… we do have other responsibilities, but on the human world I feel that is the thing we are most notable for." Lara was still sort of pissed off that she couldn't use her vacation home and decided to solve this issue herself.

"Now, listen, we flew all the way from London to Florida, so we could use my vacation house and have a good time. I'm sorry if you were "using" your home for your own personal desires, but it didn't say the house was abandoned and therefore your issues are not my problem. I want my house back, now!"

"HAHAHA! Puny mortal, you seem to underestimate the power and strength we possess. You aren't going anywhere! For your crime of disturbing peace on our grounds, you are hereby ordered to perform Intense Labor in our Coal Fields until you three perish! Then you will continue to serve us in the afterlife, here, in hell, for eternity!"

"Bullshit!" said Zip angrily. "Like you think we are going to listen to you!" I could kill and destroy you with one swipe of my finger, and you would go back home crying to your mommy!

"Oh for hell's sake, I don't have time to put up with people like you," said Satan. Without warning he swooshed his hand around and it lit up with fire, he immediately zapped Zip, lighting him on fire. He was screaming in agony. It took about 7 seconds before he stopped screaming or moving.

"WHAT THE HELL!? WHAT THE HELL!?" said Lara, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Well, that takes care of that issue," said Satan. Lara was hysterical.

"WHAT THE HELL!? WHY DID YOU DO THAT! YOU BLOODY MOTHERF****R!"

"SILENCE YOU PRIVILEGED B**CH!" started Satan. "You work for me now, both of you, and you WILL do what I say unless you want to enter your afterlife a little early, like your friend over here." Satan started laughing as he slowly backed away into the fire. Lara and Winston were now truly alone in this world.

Nearly 6 months had passed since Lara and Winston were brought into the world of Hell. They were slowly starting to adjust to daily lives living in Hell, which wasn't particularly easy. You were always dealing with temperatures of 110 °F (43.3 °C) or higher. You could never get cool in a place like hell, even a cold shower wasn't cold! Although, on the somewhat bright side, they were able to keep living in the vacation home during their extended stay. Also, the labor was very hard work. Even though it was just shoveling coal into this big furnace that powered the whole world of Hell, they had a very strict quota. They made sure the people who had died and were here because they had sinned were tortured. Lara and Winston weren't the only humans there though. There were a several hundred there. Most got in for doing the same thing Lara and Winston did, going back to an old plot of land that they hadn't visited in years that Satan had claimed. Now, Hell wasn't a dictatorship in terms of they weren't censored from viewing content from the world outside Hell or censored from reading books. During these 6 months though, Lara and Winston had been doing tons of research on Black Magic, and all the research they could find on Hell, and Satan. Lara had a good understanding of Christianity, which she originally assumed had the similar aspects and goals in mind but was just designed for people who had sinned during their life. She was wrong, and everybody who was a Christian had been fooled. God never liked how Satan ran his underground prison. They got into a battle almost 2200 years ago. The battle lasted almost 180 years and lots of blood was shed from the gods above and below. Finally, God and Satan made a deal. When Christianity was introduced 2018 years ago, and the Bible was being written, God had put influence over all the people involved and told them to put how all Hell was, was a place where people would go if they had sinned. None of its dark secrets and corruptions were ever revealed, and to this day, remained secret to the people of Earth. God had helped cover up Satan's actions to help protect his own people, and if other god's and goddesses knew of what Satan had been doing and that God had covered up, their places would be invaded and destroyed.

Lara and Winston had learned enough to plan an escape, but it was very risky, and they could end up dyeing in the process and risk an eternity in hell. But, they would get that regardless even if they did nothing, so they decided to take the risk. There was a Black-Market Arms Dealer in the area who went by the name Blackjack. He was part human and part god. He worked for Satan, however was willing to look the other way at times when money was involved. He sold high quality weapons, explosives, bombs, and pretty much everything in between, all illegally, and he was very good at his job too and keeping it secret. Lara and Winston's Earthly Weapons were not effective against Satan and the other god's in Hell. However, Blackjack sold weapons that could be used against a god and sold different types of potions and spells that could be used to get them out of there. However, the price of such was not cheap. Lara had picked out a set of _Dual Fire-Blazers Pro Pistols_. They were sleek, stylish, sexy, and had nice red color with black stripes on it. Something you would see someone like _Bayonetta_ carrying around. They were very powerful, and, while couldn't "kill" a God, could seriously render and hurt them long enough for them to cast a spell or use some type of potion to get out of there. However, the cost of such a weapon was 175,600 Guiongandos, which was the form of currency used in hell (Approximately: 55,500 USD; 41,580 GBP.) Winston had picked out a _Broadband Excel-Fire Pump Action Shotgun_. Matching the _Fire-Blazers Pro_ series, they were painted a dark red, with splotches of blue paint around the gun. Very powerful and, if shot right, this weapon could potentially kill a god. However, the price of 356,200 Guiongandos (Approximately: 103,780 USD; 77,794.53 GBP) also didn't make this thing cheap! Lastly, the potion they picked out was one Blackjack highly recommended for customers wanting to get out of there quickly after it being executed. The potion name was called _Devil Dare_. Basically how it worked was you would drink some of it, just a little would do so a whole vial would be enough for the both of them, and then you would set a place, interconnecting with the Earth world, ablaze (as this potion gave you the temporary power to set fire), and then you would walk into this modified form of fire, and you would be transported safely back to Earth in the same spot the fire was in Hell. However, there was a cost, the fire could not be stopped and would spread, therefore the plot of land in hell and on Earth would ultimately be destroyed. Lara and Winston didn't care at this point though, they wanted out of there! However, that potion, cost a whopping 2,350,000 Guiongandos (Approximately: 742,590 USD; 556,623 GBP.) During the six months they had been there, they had also worked under the law and through lots of Black Market schemes, which made them rich, they quickly, which is how they were able to afford the items needed in the short amount of time.

It was now mid-November 2018, and they decided to go through with the plan that day. They purchased their items from Blackjack and went back home. After Lara and Winston drank the potion, they began to feel their bodies change, and before long the whole house around them grew ablaze with fire. It didn't take long for Satan to notice and sent his guards down there to stop them. The potion takes a few minutes to connect to the human world, so they had to wait until the fire turned blue, which indicated they could go through. Lara and Winston took their purchased weapons and defended off the gods the best they could. Lara was able to stun them with the pistols, and Winston finished them with his Shotgun. Finally, Satan came up, with some sort of Chaingun and started firing it at them. They were able to dodge it and made their way past the Dining/Grill Area to take cover.

"Aww… what's wrong? Not happy with your stay here? Don't worry, I can make it much better for you if you could just enter the afterlife," Satan said, he sounded delusional.

"Holy shit, Lara," said Winston.

"We just have to hold off for a few more moments and we can go through," said Lara.

"Come on now Lara, Winston, I just wanted to be your friends, and I can make our relationship much better if you just come out of there." They could hear his footsteps coming closer. Lara went up on the concrete slab above the Dining/Grill area and started firing. He was tough though, he was able to continue walking past Lara's shots.

"Don't waste your bullets Lara, they aren't gonna do a damn thing!" Then Winston came out from the corner and fired his shotgun, filling Satan with lead. "Argh… you're going to have to try harder than that Winston if you want to take me down!" Lara's constant firing was slowing Satan down though, and the shotgun blast had weakened him. Winston shot another shell into his head and he fell down in pain, however was still alive." At this point, the fire was now blue and while Satan was down they entered through the fire to get to the human world.

"NO! YOU MOTHERF****RS! MARK MY WORDS, I WILL FIND YOU AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN!"

When Lara and Winston made it back to Earth, the house was completely ablaze. They quickly made their way out of it past the gate, and watched as the once beautiful and unique house, burnt to the ground. A few weeks later, everything appeared to be returning to normal, except Zip was now gone. Lara had blamed herself for Zip's untimely demise, even though Winston tried to comfort her and tell her it wasn't her fault.

"Winston?"

"Yes, Miss Croft?"

"Do you think we made a mistake not killing Satan before we left?" Winston frowned a little then said,

"Lara, we read all the books, he can't get access to us here. He can only gain access to land that has no human presence, which is not here! We'll be fine, trust me."

"I hope you are right Winston, I so hope you are right."

THE END


End file.
